Wednesday, August 02, 2006

What I did on my summer vacation, No. 3

After we left Columbia, we wandered back to western North Carolina, via Greenville. We stopped in at my alma mater and purused the bookstore. It certainly has made great strides since I graduated in 1993. The amount of Reformed and Puritan literature there is astounding, particularly when you considered that students were "shipped" in the 1970s for reading and discussion John Murray's Redemption Accomplished and Applied. I keep hoping and praying that the University continues to move slowly away from the Far Right, even if it only makes it to the center of the Right Wing. It could make a grand contribution to conservative Protestantism if it wanted to do so.

We spent the rest of last week at Ridge Haven, where Donald Guthrie and I spoke for the Covenant Family Conference. We had a good time talking about the church as Christ's new community of character and practices. We made a number of new friends, especially Sam Brown, the ministry coordinator, and J. D. Wetterling, the resident manager. J. D. just published a useful little evangelistic book called No One: When Jesus Says It, He Means It. It draws from six passages in the Gospel of John that present the doctrines of grace in an evangelistic fashion.

It took us eleven hours to make it home Friday, but we were glad to be back after two weeks away with four kids. It is hard to believe that school starts in three or four weeks. It feels like the summer is just getting started!